But fear not. If you're dying to put on an eyepatch and pull out your favorite red bandana, we know the best ways to shiver your timbers. We'll just feel horribly ashamed of ourselves while doing so. Matey.

Is there a better place to celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day than the Boomerang Pirate Ship? (Photo by Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

Sing sea shanties and watch belly dancers If anyone loves Talk Like a Pirate Day, it's the sword-swinging, shanty-singing staff at Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring. (As "Bar Rescue" host Jon Tapper told a reporter after failing to remake the restaurant's skeletons-and-swashbuckling theme, "This is a place where [staff] comes to play pirate every day.") Tonight, you'll find multiple groups singing traditional pirate songs; belly dancers breathing fire and juggling flaming batons; and specials on pirate beer and grog. If you're not game to play along, don't even bother showing up.

Sail the seven seas (or one river) For more of a pirate experience, board the Boomerang Pirate Ship, a Potomac River party yacht outfitted with a Jolly Roger on the mast, working water cannons and a full bar with "wenches" serving rum-based "pirate grog." The crew calls passengers "landlubbers" and threatens to make you walk the plank if you don't participate in the limbo contest. (They also hand out eyepatches and plastic cutlasses to help you live out your Long John Silver dreams.) Naturally, lots of customers dress up to fit the theme. A two-hour cruise leaves Georgetown's Washington Harbour at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are still available.

Drink lots of beer Belgium's insanely tasty Piraat Ale is sponsoring the Talk Like a Pirate Party at Granville Moore's, where the staff will hand out eye patches, bandanas and other prizes while pouring discounted glasses of potent Piraat BPA. Come dressed in a pirate costume and you'll be entered to win $1,300 worth of Piraat gear, including a nine-liter bottle of Piraat and a case of beer each month for a year. Doors open at 5 p.m.

Fill up on donuts Walk into Krispy Kreme and order a doughnut in a pirate voice, and you get it for free. Show up in full pirate costume – bonus points for the parrot on your shoulder -- and you get a dozen for free.

Fritz Hahn has covered bars, drinks and nightlife for the Washington Post Weekend Section since 2003, but he also writes about everything from Civil War battlefields to sailing classes. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram.

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